Elder, Murdock Foresee Less Senior Restriction

A senior year without regular classes or examinations was envisioned yesterday by two University administrators.

J.P.Elder, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, suggested that an exam-less and course-less senior year would be a logical step to facilitate a smooth transition between undergraduate and graduate study.

He pointed out that in some fields, seniors are not required to take examinations in the spring term and saw little reason why this period of academic independence could not be extended over a whole year.

The fact that some students with advanced standing are allowed to pursue a more individualistic plan of study in their senior year also would indicate that such a program could be extended and expanded in the future, Elder added.

If more students were allowed to work independent of tight course restrictions, they would be able to develop themselves much more fully than is customarily possible now, he felt.

Working with a tutor or advisor, the student could, according to Elder, expand his intellectual horizons as rapidly as he was capable of doing. This would be true not only in his own field but in other interests as well, Elder added. Presumably this type of freedom would lead to a much closer approximation of the "liberally" educated man than is now graduated from Harvard.

"More Liberty"

The Chairman of the Committee on General Education, Kenneth B. Murdock '16, Francis Lee Higginson Professor of English Literature, agreed in principle with Elder's ideas, favoring "more liberty for the more qualified student."

Murdock felt that there should be no obstacle to studying without formal grades. He noted that it is possible to do so in the graduate school, with the school merely certifying that the individual has been studying.

"Grades in courses," he said, "are a necessary evil, but for the exceptionally qualified student they might not be necessary."

"The sooner in his course of study," Murdock said, "that a student can be free of requirements, the better," for he would then be able to study intensively what particularly interested him. "I don't think," he concluded, "that courses, examinations, and counting credits in themselves are particularly desirable."